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Forget self improvement

deliberatism.com

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Re: Forget self improvement

#31

Post by geoka9 »

nostrademons wrote: post #26
dkarl wrote: post #13

On the other hand, you might consider simply finding what you love, and letting the rest take care of itself. Yep, this works great for me. Because I'm never bored by what I love, never discouraged by what I love, never heedlessly irresponsible about what I love, never sick of what I love, never resentful of what I love, never scared to death of what I love. I'm never distracted by what I don't love, never seduced by…

I don't think that's really the author's point. I think his point is that when you find something you love, you will forgive the little aggravations and just power through them, because they are part of this activity that you love. You find yourself loving the aggravations as much as the achievement, so that it's the process that pulls you along. I'm debugging a double-free in a C library right now. I have basically…

> Yet many runners (not I) get a high from the process

I think it's within the grasp of anybody. You just have to learn to enjoy the pain running (or any other workout) brings. It sounds perverted but it does help to approach exercise with such mindset.

Now, how to convince yourself to enjoy it, is an interesting question. For me, the realization that we (as animals) were meant to run much (if not most) of our waking day did wonders (the aha moment, if you will).

Re: Forget self improvement

#32

Post by geoka9 »

comlag wrote: post #3

"I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have."- Andre Agassi What if the things you are good at are not the things you love? What about the opposite? It is too complex to boil down to 'do what you love'.

Frankly, I don't believe Andre here. You can't be the best in the world at something over a long period of time (8 Grand Slam titles, gold Olympic medal, etc. etc.) hating it the way he asserts in his book.

Re: Forget self improvement

#33

Post by antihero »

suyash wrote: post #30
antihero wrote: post #18

This is fucking bullshit. In the words of Jake, sucking at something is just the first step to being kinda good at something. Often when you are bad at something, you don't enjoy it, often when you are good at something you still don't enjoy it, but the ability to self-discipline, to get good at something despite not enjoying it, translates to power over oneself. If we all just gave up because we didn't enjoy shit in…

+ 1, complete BS article, the author seems to have a very naive understanding of what self-improvement is and what it's benefits are. We can also use self improvement proven techniques to get at the next level that we aspire. PS. I'm obsessed with Self Improvement and I've grown a lot using those techniques.

Well the way I see it, self improvement is like playing guitar - initially it's bloody hard and doesn't make sense and when you do lock down a chord it takes ages to then play the next one and is a whole mess and is super awkward and annoying, however, once you get vaguely good at it then it becomes less about the gruelling learning and more about playing around and enjoying what you're good at - it's not just a learning exercise, it's something you understand and can develop in your own sweet way.

Self improvement, learning, guitar skill - nobody, unless you're innately talented, is something anyone just "slips into" naturally because it "feels right and is easy" as this article suggests - making the most out of this pointless spec of time takes hard work, paying attention, taking risks, learning the hard way, but it's like, deferred gratification...being bored easily helps (otherwise we'd just devote our lives to the mundane shit children enjoy), it's a fantastical journey of discovery, and it's not necessarily easy to reach things that can reward us the most.

Re: Forget self improvement

#34

Post by thesash »

Running the marathon is the easy part, it's the training that'll get you. The vast majority of runs when I'm training for a marathon are not tranquil, peaceful, or enjoyable. In fact, the runs that matter, the ones that make the difference between a PR and a disappointing race, are the ones that suck the most. Forcing yourself to run when you're tired, burned out, have other things you want to be doing, that is what it means to be a runner. I love to run, but it would still be a hell of a lot easier to go home tonight and veg out in the couch instead of getting out and putting rubber to pavement, and that's a temptation tat hasn't gone away, even after 10 years of running.

Perhaps the lesson isn't "Find what you love", but rather, "Decide what's worth loving and force yourself to grind your teeth and power through no matter what". Summoning the grit to power through and do what you love even when it sucks is what separates the marathoner from the runner that never steps up to the start line.

Re: Forget self improvement

#35

Post by kstenerud »

kirse wrote: post #2

I mostly agree with the author's message that we spend far too much time trying to "improve" ourselves through knowledge-seeking, rather than simply doing . However, simply "doing what you love" ignores the reality that our level of interest and passion waxes and wanes, and sometimes willpower is needed to pull us through those times where we're waiting for our feelings to "catch up" with what our mind knows to be tr…

"man's want for eternal significance - that desire to be known long after he is dead"

That's something I've never understood. What does it matter whether you're known after you're dead? You'd never know anyway since you're dead, and you couldn't derive any benefit from it since you're dead!

Re: Forget self improvement

#36

Post by flyhighplato »

shasta wrote: post #9
flyhighplato wrote: post #4

It's all very simple. The trick to always succeeding is to take all your failures and make yourself think they're successes. If you can't fail, you've got no fear. Being delusional or mentally/emotionally unstable helps.

This post was another success for you.

I'm a visionary.

Re: Forget self improvement

#37

Post by ryanwaggoner »

I am so tired of this same idea popping up over and over on the blogosphere. It's complete nonsense, as other commenters have pointed out. But what makes me really angry is that it really devalues the hard work of people who do accomplish amazing things.

"She just won a gold medal in the Olympics? Oh, it wasn't hard for her, she loves to do it. If only I could just find the thing I really love, I could get up off this couch and really make something of myself, you know?"

Yeah, I'm sure.

Re: Forget self improvement

#38

Post by erikpukinskis »

thesash wrote: post #34

Running the marathon is the easy part, it's the training that'll get you. The vast majority of runs when I'm training for a marathon are not tranquil, peaceful, or enjoyable. In fact, the runs that matter, the ones that make the difference between a PR and a disappointing race, are the ones that suck the most. Forcing yourself to run when you're tired, burned out, have other things you want to be doing, that is what…

Forcing yourself to run when you're tired, burned out, have other things you want to be doing, that is what it means to be a runner.

I really respect your approach to running. You sound like someone who likes to get your times down, ya? I bet you're fast. Good on you.

But I just want to throw out there that there are lots of kinds of runners. I, for one, do NOT run when I'm burnt out, or have other things I want to be doing. I run when my body says "mmm... let's go for a run!" I run to get closer in tune with my body, and to get better at listening to myself. And when I'm out on the road or the trail, I don't push myself, I just listen. I get into a groove, and I see how far my body can take me.

I'm never going to be fast, and that's OK with me. That's what being a runner means to me. I think we all have different reasons for why we get out and do stuff.

Re: Forget self improvement

#40

Post by nostrademons »

antihero wrote: post #33
suyash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ 1, complete BS article, the author seems to have a very naive understanding of what self-improvement is and what it's benefits are. We can also use self improvement proven techniques to get at the next level that we aspire. PS. I'm obsessed with Self Improvement and I've grown a lot using those techniques.

Well the way I see it, self improvement is like playing guitar - initially it's bloody hard and doesn't make sense and when you do lock down a chord it takes ages to then play the next one and is a whole mess and is super awkward and annoying, however, once you get vaguely good at it then it becomes less about the gruelling learning and more about playing around and enjoying what you're good at - it's not just a lear…

I thought the point of the article was that hard work, paying attention, and taking risks can itself be fun. Perhaps I'm just projecting my own views onto the author.
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